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By the late 1890s, Osborn and his Department of Vertebrate Paleontology (DVP) field paleontologists had amassed an enviable collection of fossil mammals from scores of localities in the Western states, and had also made a very respectable beginning in collecting dinosaurs near Como Bluff, Wyoming. Under Osborn's leadership, the DVP had become the leading center for vertebrate paleontology in the United States, but success inspired imitation. Just before the turn of the twentieth century, new, privately funded, museum-based programs in vertebrate paleontology started up at the Carnegie Museum...

By the late 1890s, Osborn and his Department of Vertebrate Paleontology (DVP) field paleontologists had amassed an enviable collection of fossil mammals from scores of localities in the Western states, and had also made a very respectable beginning in collecting dinosaurs near Como Bluff, Wyoming. Under Osborn's leadership, the DVP had become the leading center for vertebrate paleontology in the United States, but success inspired imitation. Just before the turn of the twentieth century, new, privately funded, museum-based programs in vertebrate paleontology started up at the Carnegie Museum of Natural History in Pittsburgh and the Field Columbian Museum in Chicago. The investment of private money into multiple museum paleontology programs fueled a period of intense competitive activity. A scramble ensued among museum programs to claim the best field sites and to collect, prepare, and exhibit the finest specimens.